Staff Nurses’ Perception about Own Role Behavior Versus Others’ Perception

Background: Nurses are the heart of any health care team and the perception of their role behavior is crucial for futuristic improvement. Role can be seen in term of role behavior and role expectation. Role behavior refers to the actual roles and responsibilities and how these roles should be played.The Aim of the Study: The current study seeks to explore nurses’ perception about own role behavior versus head nurses and patients perception.Material and Methods: Design: A descriptive comparative design was utilized.Setting: The study was conducted at two hospitals affiliated to Cairo University Hospitals.Sample: Included three hundred and ninety two of the staff nurses from each hospital. Thirty one of the head nurses working in selected units were included. One hundred and fifty of the patients who were admitted during data collection.Tool: Data was collected using questionnaire developed by the investigator consists of two parts: first part was related to participants' socio-demographic data, the second part: Includes items related to the perception of the staff nurses' role behavior.Results: The study revealed that the staff nurses (70% of the staff nurses mean percent) moderately positive perceived their role behavior, the head nurses also (75% of the head nurses mean percent) moderately positive perceived the staff nurses’ role behavior while the patients perception (60.4%) about the staff nurses’ role behavior was low, also there was statistically significance difference between both the staff nurses and the head nurses, the staff nurses and the patients about nurses’ role behavior.Conclusion: It was found discrepancy between the staff nurses’ and the head nurse’ perception, the patients and the staff nurse perception regarding the staff nurses’ role behavior.Recommendation: The study recommended that the nursing syndicate, nurse managers and nurses themselves must actively seeks means to use mass media, for transmitting information about nurses and nursing profession to create positive public's attitude toward nursing. The public image can be changed through provision of high quality nursing care, based on education, well training and nurse good role behaviors. Nursing care standardized procedure must be available in the units to be a base for training and evaluation. Further observational studies must be conducted to explore nurses’ role behavior.